Commonwealth v. Dreibelbis
| Decision Date | 18 September 1970 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Terry A. DREIBELBIS, a/k/a Terry Allen Dreibelbis, Appellant. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Superior Court |
William R. Bernhart, Reading, for appellant.
Robert Van Hoove, Dist. Atty., Reading, Grant E. Wesner, Asst. Dist Atty., for appellee.
Before WRIGHT, P.J., and WATKINS, MONTGOMERY JACOBS, HOFFMAN, SPAULDING and CERCONE, JJ.
On May 10 1968, the appellant was charged with having committed the crimes of burglary and larceny in Kutztown, Berks County Pennsylvania and was found guilty on both counts by a jury on September 24, 1968. Appellant filed motions for a new trial and/or arrest of judgment which were denied by the lower court and defendant was sentenced to pay a fine of $200.00 costs of prosecution, and commitment to the Bureau of Corrections for not less than three years nor more than seven years.
The appeal before this court assigns several errors on the part of the trial judge, the first of which is the lower court's refusal to allow cross-examination of a Commonwealth witness with respect to his use of drugs. The witness, Joseph B. Halpin, was the alleged accomplice in the burglary and larceny which were the subject of this trial.
On May 9, 1968, Halpin gave a written, sworn statement to the District Attorney's office concerning the burglary and larceny. In the statement, Halpin admitted that he was under the influence of drugs at the time of the crime.
At trial, defense counsel attempted to cross-examine Halpin on his alleged use of drugs at the time of the crime. The situation is shown by the record as follows:
'BY MR. BERNHART:
Q How long have you been a user of drugs and narcotics?
(Whereupon the sidebar conference was concluded.)
It is the contention of the Commonwealth that the defendant, in his efforts to question the witness on his use of drugs, attempted to attack the credibility of the witness in general terms, which the Commonwealth claims is prohibited under the authority of Commonwealth v. Payne, 205 Pa. 101, 54 A. 489 (1903).
A review of the facts in this case however reveals that questioning as to drug usage by the witness would have been more than just a general, shotgun attack at his credibility. The question of drug influence, at the time of the commission of the crime would have been particularly relevant since the witness admitted that the day after the crime he gave a statement to the police that the appellant was not involved, that twenty-one days after the crime, during an appearance in Juvenile Court, he maintained that the appellant was not involved in the crime, and that he made no mention of defendant's participation until six months after the crime. Moreover, Halpin testified that there was a third individual who allegedly participated in the crime. All of these facts tend to show that at the time of the event to which he testified his powers of observation an memory were impaired and his recollection and account of the experience perhaps inadequate, for which purpose we approved similar questioning in Commonwealth v. Morrison, 157 Pa.Super. 366, 368, 43 A.2d 400, 401 (1945). In that case, a prosecution for sodomy, defense counsel was prohibited from asking the question '* * * or were you smoking dope cigarettes and drinking stale cider that you found in the cellar that evening?' This court determined that the question was proper and should not have been excluded since it was '* * * related to events upon which the Commonwealth was relying for conviction.' The court went on to say that the '* * * question was unobjectionable because it was asked for the purpose of attacking the credibility of the witness by showing That at the time of the event to which he testified his...
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